"With the technology improving and costs falling, 3-D
printing could be poised to play a major role in manufacturing.
DEVENS, Mass. — The machines stand 20 feet high, weigh
60,000 pounds and represent the technological frontier of 3-D printing.
Each machine deploys 150 laser beams, projected from a
gantry (a bridge-like overhead structure with a platform supporting equipment
such as a crane, railroad signals, lights, or cameras) and moving quickly back
and forth, making high-tech parts for corporate customers in fields including
aerospace, semiconductors, defense and medical implants.
The parts of titanium and other materials are created layer
by layer, each about as thin as a human hair, up to 20,000 layers, depending on
a part’s design. The machines are hermetically sealed. Inside, the atmosphere
is mainly argon, the least reactive of gases, reducing the chance of impurities
that cause defects in a part.
The 3-D-printing foundry in Devens, Mass., about 40 miles
northwest of Boston, is owned by VulcanForms, a start-up that came out of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It has raised $355 million in venture
funding. And its work force has jumped sixfold in the past year to 360, with
recruits from major manufacturers like General Electric and Pratt & Whitney
and tech companies including Google and Autodesk.
“We have proven the technology works,” said John Hart, a
co-founder of VulcanForms and a professor of mechanical engineering at M.I.T.
“What we have to show now is strong financials as a company and that we can
manage growth.”
For 3-D printing, whose origins stretch back to the 1980s,
the technology, economic and investment trends may finally be falling into
place for the industry’s commercial breakout, according to manufacturing
experts, business executives and investors.
They say 3-D printing, also called additive manufacturing,
is no longer a novelty technology for a few consumer and industrial products,
or for making prototype design concepts.
“It is now a technology that is beginning to deliver
industrial-grade product quality and printing in volume,” said Jörg Bromberger,
a manufacturing expert at McKinsey & Company. He is the lead author of a
recent report by the consulting firm titled, “The Mainstreaming of Additive
Manufacturing.”
3-D printing refers to making something from the ground up,
one layer at a time. Computer-guided laser beams melt powders of metal, plastic
or composite material to create the layers.
In traditional “subtractive” manufacturing, a block of
metal, for example, is cast and then a part is carved down into shape with
machine tools.
In recent years, some companies have used additive
technology to make specialized parts. General Electric relies on 3-D printing
to make fuel nozzles for jet engines, Stryker makes spinal implants and Adidas
prints latticed soles for high-end running shoes. Dental implants and teeth-straightening
devices are 3-D printed. During the Covid-19 pandemic, 3-D printers produced
emergency supplies of face shields and ventilator parts.
Today, experts say, the potential is far broader than a
relative handful of niche products. The 3-D printing market is expected to
triple to nearly $45 billion worldwide by 2026, according to a report by Hubs,
a marketplace for manufacturing services.
The Biden administration is looking to 3-D printing to help
lead a resurgence of American manufacturing. Additive technology will be one of
“the foundations of modern manufacturing in the 21st century,” along with
robotics and artificial intelligence, said Elisabeth Reynolds, special
assistant to the president for manufacturing and economic development.
In May, President Biden traveled to Cincinnati to announce
Additive Manufacturing Forward, an initiative coordinated by the White House in
collaboration with major manufacturers. The five initial corporate members — GE
Aviation, Honeywell, Siemens Energy, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin — are
increasing their use of additive manufacturing and pledged to help their small and
medium-size American suppliers adopt the technology.
The voluntary commitments are intended to accelerate
investment and build a broader domestic base of additive manufacturing skills.
Because 3-D printing is a high-tech digital manufacturing
process, administration officials say, it plays to America’s strength in
software.
Additive manufacturing, they add, will make American
manufacturing less dependent on casting and metalworking done overseas,
especially in China.
Additive manufacturing also promises an environmental bonus.
It is far less wasteful than the casting, forging and cutting of traditional
manufacturing. For some metal parts, 3-D printing can cut materials costs by 90
percent and reduce energy use by 50 percent.
Industrial 3-D printing, experts say, has the potential to
substantially cut the total expense of making specialized parts, if the
technology can be made fast and efficient enough for higher-volume production.
VulcanForms was founded in 2015 by Dr. Hart and one of his
graduate students, Martin Feldmann.
They pursued a fresh approach for 3-D printing that uses an
array of many more laser beams than existing systems. It would require
innovations in laser optics, sensors and software to choreograph the intricate
dance of laser beams.
By 2017, they had made enough progress to think they could
build a machine, but would need money to do it. The pair, joined by Anupam
Ghildyal, a serial start-up veteran who had become part of the VulcanForms
team, went to Silicon Valley. They secured a seed round of $2 million from
Eclipse Ventures.
The VulcanForms technology, recalled Greg Reichow, a partner
at Eclipse, was trying to address the three shortcomings of 3-D printing: too
slow, too expensive and too ridden with defects.
The start-up
struggled to build a first machine that proved its concept workable. But it
eventually succeeded. And later versions grew larger, more powerful and more
precise.
Its printers, VulcanForms said, now generate 100 times the
laser energy of most 3-D printers, and can produce parts many times faster.
That print technology is the company’s core intellectual
asset, protected by dozens of patents.
But VulcanForms has decided not to sell its machines. Its
strategy is to be a supplier to customers in need of custom-made parts.
That approach allows VulcanForms to control the entire
manufacturing process. But it is also a concession to the reality that the ecosystem
of additive manufacturing is lacking. The company is building each stage of the
manufacturing process itself, making its own printers, designing parts, doing
final machining and testing.
“We absolutely have to do it ourselves — build the full stack
of digital manufacturing — if we are to succeed,” said Mr. Feldmann, who is the
chief executive. “The factory is the product.”
The Devens facility has six of the giant printers. By next
year, there should be 20, the company said. VulcanForms has scouted four
locations for a second factory. In five years, the company hopes to have
several 3-D printing factories up and running.
The do-it-yourself strategy also magnifies the risk and the
cost for the start-up. But the company has convinced a roster of high-profile
recruits that the risk is worth it.
Brent Brunell joined
VulcanForms last year from General Electric, where he was an additive
manufacturing expert. The concept of using large arrays of lasers in 3-D
printing is not new, Mr. Brunell said, but no one had really pulled it off
before. After he joined VulcanForms and examined its technology, he said, “it was
obvious these guys were onto the next architecture, and they had a process that
was working.”
Beside each machine in VulcanForms’s facility, an operator
monitors its performance with a stream of sensor data and a camera image of the
laser beams at work, piped to a computer screen. The sound of the factory is a
low, electronic hum, much like a data center.
The factory itself can be a potent recruiting tool. “I bring
them here and show them the machinery,” said Kip Wyman, a former senior
manufacturing manager at Pratt & Whitney, who is head of operations at
VulcanForms. “The usual reaction is, ‘Heck, I want to be part of that.’”
For some industrial parts, 3-D printing alone is not enough.
Final heat treatment and metal machining are needed. Recognizing that,
VulcanForms acquired Arwood Machine this year.
Arwood is a modern machine shop that mostly does work for
the Pentagon, making parts for fighter jets, underwater drones and missiles.
Under VulcanForms, the plan over the next few years is for Arwood to triple its
investment and work force, currently 90 people.
VulcanForms, a private company, does not disclose its
revenue. But it said sales were climbing rapidly, while orders were rising
tenfold quarter by quarter.
Sustained growth for VulcanForms is going to depend on
increasing sales to customers like Cerebras, which makes specialized
semiconductor systems for artificial intelligence applications. Cerebras sought
out VulcanForms last year for help making a complex part for water-cooling its
powerful computer processors.
The semiconductor company sent VulcanForms a computer-design
drawing of the concept, an intricate web of tiny titanium tubes. Within 48
hours VulcanForms had come back with a part, recalled Andrew Feldman, chief
executive of Cerebras. Engineers for both companies worked on further
refinements, and the cooling system is now in use.
Accelerating the pace of experimentation and innovation is
one promise of additive manufacturing. But modern 3-D printing, Mr. Feldman
said, also allows engineers to make new, complex designs that improve
performance. “We couldn’t have made that water-cooling part any other way,” Mr.
Feldman said.
“Additive manufacturing lets us rethink how we build
things,” he said. “That’s where we are now, and that’s a big change.”"
Russia is also famous for physicists, mathematicians, engineers and programmers. Russia also needs expensive parts of titanium and other more expensive components for the military industry. Therefore, this method of production can also flourish in Russia.
